Will,
I became a fan of Deming in the 80s when he and Bill Glasser teamed up to consider what a quality school would be like. We have a public charter that began in the 80s and has been a Glasser Quality School for decades. When I learned the phrase “bean counting” from Deming, it became a part of my vocabulary — as Deming once said:
And — I loved this conversation with Ackoff and Deming two icons of biz dedicated to creating an engaged and empowered, systems thinking workforce .. And despite my reticence to bring business into education, they were a different kind of biz thinker in their day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MJ3lGJ4OFo&sns=em
I’ve used this video in a past blog but need to look back in deep archives. “Imagining Education” is in progress across the nation but it demands more than tinkering around the edges — no rethink, reform, reimagine, re — anything. We need full on transformation. Ackoff’s narration of his unexpected visit to a Bell labs gathering on a Saturday morning in 1951 — when the Bell Labs VP got his attention:
“The room was dead silent. Finally, he looked up and in an uncharacteristically meek voice said, “Gentlemen, the telephone system of the United States was destroyed last night.” Then he looked down again.” And now
.. As a famous radio announcer used to say.
